What of the guilt?
by lexiepedia
Summary: After Lexie shows up at Mark's doorstep that night, Mark is thrown for the emotional rollercoaster of his life. Will he go after the one thing he has always wanted? At the same time Lexie is struggling to make sense of all the signals Mark is throwing her while her family continues to fall apart.
1. Chapter 1

There was a knock at the door and Mark turned off the TV with a sigh. He hadn't been watching in the first place, he didn't even know the score, but the intrusion was not welcomed anyway. His mind was preoccupied by the beautiful intern with whiskey coloured eyes and the amount of cold showers that the thought of her had forced him to take over the last couple of weeks. It couldn't be healthy anymore.

Mark opened the door. He had expected to see one of the hotel employees on the other side or perhaps even Derek. Anyone but her really.

"You made her speak." was the first thing she said the second he opened the door. "Mrs Patterson, she said hi. You, you made her speak."

Mark was so stunned to see her standing there that he didn't really hear anything she said. Her cheeks were flushed and she was slightly out of breath, but all Mark could think about was that she was standing outside his door. It was first when she started to remove her clothes that he reacted.

"What are you doing?" she could not be serious, he thought. "Stop!"

"Teach me." she said and he quickly closed the door when he realised that she wasn't going to stop.

"We can´t do this. You're-you´re Little Grey and I-I promised and I am your teacher." he could hear himself how unconvincing he sounded. This, he wanted this. How are you supposed to say no to something you want when it is right in front of you and within your grasp?

"So teach me." was her simple response as she took of her purple turtleneck.

"Oh Lexie." he sighed. He tried to look away but she looked so beautiful standing there with her wide eyes looking up at him and her chocolate hair falling down her shoulders.

"Come on, am I really that bad?" the insecurity in her voice was like a stab to Mark's heart and it was what made him give in to what they both so obviously wanted.

"No. I am."

Without wasting another second Mark closed the final distance between him and Lexie and did something he had longed to do since that time he heard her recite the periodic table at Joe's after work. She tasted like nothing Mark had ever tasted before and he loved how she was just as eager to give as he was. Their lips moved in sync and their hands roamed up and down the other's body. Mark's hands found their way into Lexie's hair and her hands gripped onto his shoulders tightly. And then clothes started to fly around the room. His shirt, her pants, his pants, her bra and so on.

Mark knew he should stop it. If Derek were ever to find out, it would ruin everything that they had managed to build up after Mark's stunt with Addison. But every bone inside of his body screamed at him that this was right. Because it was. It felt right to have Lexie in his arms and the open look in her eyes told him that she felt it as well. And besides, Mark was a selfish man and there was no way he was going to give up something that felt this good. He pushed Derek to the back of his mind and pressed a long kiss to Lexie's lips to try and convey all the things he felt but couldn't voice.

The next morning Mark felt slightly disorientated when he woke up. Normally he woke up sprawled out on his stomach as close to the window he could get without falling out of bed and he always hogged all of the sheets. But this morning someone else had hogged the sheets and had it not been for the heat pressed into his side, his teeth would clatter.

Mark wiped the sleep out of his eyes with his free hand that was not wrapped around the body next to him.

The room was still quite dark and outside the window the sun had just started to rise so it was still early.

When he looked down he was faced with a mop of chocolate brown hair that could belong only to the intelligent intern who he had been warned off from. She was still asleep with her face pressed into his neck. Every time she let out a breath it hit his neck and sent shivers through his body. It felt nice, really nice, and for once he did not feel claustrophobic when he woke up next to someone. Had it been anybody else lying half on top of him, Mark would have probably already been out of the bed, but he liked the feeling of having her in his arms, so much in fact that he could actually overlook the hogging of the sheets.

Five more minutes, Mark thought and stretched out before he hugged Lexie close again. He had to get up and get ready for work, so did Lexie, but he couldn't find it in him to get up quite yet.

Lexie stirred in his arms because of his movements and groaned softly, clearly not happy about having to get up right now either.

"Good morning!" Mark said quietly to not disturb the peace that lay in the room.

"Morning!"

"We have to get up." he said after a few seconds.

"I know. But I can't move." Lexie groaned. "My entire body aches." Mark couldn't help but laugh at how cute she sounded.

"You were pretty amazing last night, Little Grey!" he said softly and let his hand stroke gently over her cheek. Lexie closed her eyes again at his touch and when she opened them again they burned with something that made Mark's body come alive.

"There's no complaints here either." she grinned cheekily and leaned in slowly to press a kiss to his lips.

Mark allowed himself to get lost in the kiss and when Lexie tentatively asked for entrance with her tongue, he freely gave it to her. He reluctantly broke it off after a few minutes though. They needed to get up now or they would never leave the room today if Mark had his way.

"How about a shower before we have to leave for work?"

Mark climbed out of bed first, before he helped Lexie out as well and led her over to the dark bathroom. He turned on the lights and walked first into the shower to turn on the water so it could heat up to the right temperature. When it was to his satisfaction he pulled her in behind the glass wall and pushed her under the stream.

They did not say a word the entire time as the warm water ran down their bodies. Her whiskey coloured eyes never wavered from his and Mark liked how they did not need to use words to communicate at the moment. It would break the nice little bubble they were in at the moment and force them back to reality way too soon.

It was first when he could see Lexie's tiny fingers start to prune that Mark turned off the water and helped her out of the shower. He took one of the fluffy white towels from the rack and wrapped it around Lexie before he wrapped one around his waist. For which he was rewarded with a sweet and quick kiss.

While Lexie got dressed and tried to untangle her hair to make it look somewhat presentable, Mark called room service and ordered them coffee and something light to fill their stomachs with. It arrived ten minutes later and less than five minutes after that they were both out the door, dressed and ready for another long day at the hospital. To Mark the day could not have started in a better day.

Mark drove them to the hospital in his car, but he let Lexie walk in first before he followed five minutes later. It wouldn't help either of them if they became the newest gossip of Seattle Grace. Lexie certainly did not deserve to have this held over her head and he certainly did not need the entire hospital knowing of his latest conquest, not when he just started to redeem his reputation among the nurses.

Mark wasn't a morning person and was always very grouchy to everyone before he had downed his first espresso, but today his steps were light and he actually smiled as he entered the hospital.

The first person Mark ran into and who noticed his strange behaviour was Derek. He knew to stay clear of Mark in the morning until Mark approached him, but he couldn't stop his curiosity at his friend's good mood and walked up to Mark by the elevators.

"Good night last night?"

Mark turned to look at him with a shit eating grin. "The best."

"Who is she?" Derek smiled. "Anyone I know?" at that Mark looked away but the grin was still present on his face. "As long as it is not Lexie then I am happy."

It was quick and Derek almost missed it, but when he mentioned Lexie Mark's smile faltered and Derek could not help but wonder why.

Luckily for Mark the elevator arrived and kept Derek from asking anymore questions. Of course Derek would manage to destroy the one good thing Mark had without even being aware of it. Mark's high transformed into guilt as the elevator doors closed behind them and other hospital personnel. The one thing Derek had asked him not to do, he had gone and done anyway.

Mark tried to justify it by telling himself that it was Lexie who went after him and so on. But in the end it all came down to the fact that it was Mark's own responsibility and that he should have tried harder to get her to leave, he had just not wanted her to.

Mark knew what he had to do, it just sucked to have to do it. What he and Lexie had shared last night had been amazing and something Mark had never experienced before, not even with Addison who he had supposedly been in love with. What they shared had made him believe that maybe he wasn't such a bad person after all, that maybe this could be something more. But Mark knew deep inside that he would end up hurting her one day. It was better to end it now before it was too late.


	2. Chapter 2

Two

"Too good to be true"

Lexie could not wipe off the smile that had been a permanent fixture on her face since she woke up this morning. It had been one good thing after another today and it was not even noon yet.

To wake up next to Mark this morning, to spend the night with him, had been everything Lexie had thought it would be and more. It had not been her intention to sleep with him when she went over to his hotel room last night, but it had been inevitable really. Something has been brewing between them for weeks. There has been subtle flirting by the nurses' station and innocent touching while handling charts. It has also not gone unnoticed by Lexie that Mark seemed to have more patience with her then with other interns. More than once Mark has stopped what he is doing to let her help or show her something complicated or unusual. It had all lead up to that moment in Mark's hotel room last night when they both exploded, and what an explosion it had been.

Lexie has heard all the rumours that floated around the hospital. Everyone knew of the rumours that followed Mark Sloan around, the nurses tended to have very loose lips, but the rumours had not done him any justice. If there was anyone who knew the woman's body it was Mark, he knew it like the back of his hand. He had her writhing in pleasure the minute he took her into his arms. It had been so intense and like Lexie has ever experienced before. Just before she closed her eyes out of pure exhaustion she felt something that she could not put her finger on, but when she woke up this morning and did not want to open her eyes it all clicked. She had not wanted to open her eyes because to her it meant so much more than just sex and it scared her that maybe Mark did not feel the same. It had been no mystery to her what was supposed to happen next. They would say an awkward goodbye and then they would never speak of it again, but when that did not happen, her body got all warm and tingly. This morning had been just as amazing as last night.

Then to top it all off, she was no longer on Christina Yang's service, who was determined to make her life a living hell. Dr. Hunt had cornered her 30 minutes into her shift and informed her that she was now a part of his new code team.

His job as the new trauma surgeon is to improve their efficiency and make Seattle Grace the number one trauma hospital. The new code team is a part of that. So instead of doing post-op notes and run around with test results for Christina Yang, Lexie would now work closely with the residents and attendings on the team in the ER. Their job is to handle every major trauma that comes in and to do it better than anyone else. They are to be the elite and is currently being trained to handle the pressure while getting the job done. It is to be fast and flawless, there's no room for mistakes. Lexie, who was not one to back down from a challenge, jumped at the chance to prove her worth and make a name for herself other than Meredith Grey's little sister.

That is why she was currently running up and down the stairs at Seattle Grace in a crazed pace. Despite the so called "promotion" she still had to do a lot of running to do one thing or another, but for this she did not mind. This time she was running from the ER to the surgical floor to find her brother in law. They needed a consult and as she was at the bottom of the food chain, the intern got to do the running.

Lexie spotted him the moment she walked out from the stairwell. He was standing at the nurses' station, reading a chart, but he wasn't alone. Next to him, in all his glory, stood Mark. Lexie bit her lip. Scrubs weren't the most flattering clothes you could wear, but Mark managed to pull it off. The dark blue scrubs hugged his hips and were tight over his shoulders and chest. There was not one sane person who would not look twice in his direction.

She walked over to them nervously and waited for them to pause in their conversation.

"Doctor Shepherd?"

"Lexie?" the two attendings turned around and waited for her to continue.

"We need your consult on a head trauma down in the ER."

"Sure!" he said. "By the way, congratulations on your "promotion"!"

"Thank you!"

While Derek turned around and talked to the nurse about his patient, Lexie looked over at Mark. He met her gaze but he looked away so fast you would have thought that she had burnt him. She frowned but she didn't have the time to pounder Mark's strange behaviour because Derek was waiting for her to lead the way.

The case had been more extensive than they had first thought and it took several hours before Lexie had a moment to herself to breathe. She found herself sitting in the stairwell between the ER and the surgical floor, just in case she was needed again.

After letting out a loud groan, she let her head fall back against the wall behind her. Lexie was exhausted from all the running around and this thing with Mark doing her head in. Why had he acted so strange? He never had a problem with talking to her in front of Derek before. Sure they had now slept together but from what Lexie could tell, Mark wasn't the kind of person who was usually bothered by something like that.

Lexie knew she was not supposed to expect anything. Mark and she was not an item, but she couldn't help but feel a little hurt by his actions. She thought that this morning meant that what they had done was more than a one night stand.

The vibration of her pager brought her back to the stairwell.

"Where are you?"

The page was from Mark and for a few seconds she thought about ignoring it and Mark, but she was curious of what he wanted. So she waited eagerly in her spot while looking at the arms on her watch move. It took two minutes and 35 seconds for him to come walking down the stairs, which meant that he had most likely been up to check on a patient. She waited for him to take a seat beside her before she looked at him. He didn't look like his normal happy self. He looked bothered by something, which was usually the dace her sister would normally wear.

"Hi." Lexie said quietly.

"Hi." when he didn't say anything else or even make an attempt to, Lexie wanted to yell out her frustration. She was not in the mood to deal with his weird mood right now.

"Why did you want to see me?"

"It can't happen again." he blurted out after a few seconds of silence and she stopped breathing. "I made a promise to Derek. I don´t regret it, but it can´t happen again. It was a mistake and I can't go down this road again."

"A mistake? That´s what I am to you?" Lexie felt how a knot started to form in her throat.

"Lexie…" Mark sighed pleadingly. It was like he was begging her to just accept what he was saying and not make it harder for him. "I think it would just be easier for the both of us if we forget it ever happened and go back to how it was before."

"You know that that is not possible for me." Lexie was on the verge of tears. "I will remember every second of it in excruciating detail for the rest of my life."

Mark touched his hand to her cheek and Lexie closed her eyes. It hurt. It hurt more than it should and that just made it all worse.

"I'm sorry." Mark whispered before he removed his hand from her cheek and left.

Lexie was once again all alone in the stairwell, but this time she wanted nothing more than for someone to be there to hold her. Tears fell down her cheeks and her breath was rapid. This was not how Lexie had thought her day would turn out. She supposed she should have seen it coming. Things had been going so well, perhaps a little too well for someone with a history like her. Her mother died, her sister didn't want to know her, her father had become a drunk after her mother's death and the guy she had fallen for didn't even notice her. Now Mark thought of her as nothing more than his latest one night stand. That was Lexie Grey's life in a nutshell.

She let out a bitter laugh and got up from the floor. It was time to get back to work so that she could leave when her shift ended. She needed to get some sleep, even if it was under several layers of blankets in Meredith´s attic. But not just yet. Lexie collected herself and left the stairs to find her brother in law, who was the main reason for the sudden change in her mood. She couldn't wait to go home.


	3. Chapter 3

Three

Mark was walking down the hallway of the hospital at a rapid speed and anyone who came in his way moved away faster than lightning. When he walked by one of the unoccupied patient rooms Mark caught his reflection in the window. The scowl on his face was even more pronounced than yesterday and the day before yesterday. It had been a week since the night Lexie showed up at his hotel room and his mood only got worse with every passing day. He was a nightmare to work with and he knew it. He was snapping at innocent nurses and residents who were only doing their job.

People was starting to talk. The staff at Seattle Grace loved to gossip and the latest topic was who had pissed of their Head of Plastic. Everyone wanted to know and they were doing their very best to find out. There was even a betting pool of whom it might be.

Derek was waiting for him when he arrived in the lobby. It was the end of their shift and they were going over to Joe´s for a couple of drinks. Mark really wasn't in the mood. He didn't want to listen to Derek's stories about his perfect life with Meredith today. Normally he didn't have a problem with it, he would nod and hum at the right places because he was just glad that Derek was starting to open up to him again. But tonight all he wanted to do was go home. He was exhausted from the lack of sleep the past week. It turned out that Lexie had been wrong when she said that she was the only one who wouldn't be able to forget their night together. Every night this past week that night has played over and over again in his mind. It was so vivid and so real that he could still sense her scent on the sheets even though the maid had changed them. He lay awake for hours every night before he finally fell asleep in the early hours of the morning.

"Good day? Yelled at any nurses?" Derek asked. Mark only grunted in response. "Do you even have any more nurses to piss off?" he laughed.

The both of them stayed quiet as they walked across the road and into Joe's, but Mark could feel Derek's eyes on him all the way. As usual the place was packed with people that had a night of from the hospital, all scattered over the tables and the bar, and the volume was almost unbearable to Mark. He spotted an empty table in the corner and ploughed his way through the crowd.

Mark was impressed by his friend. He managed to stay quiet until after Joe had bought their drinks over to speak when Mark was less likely to punch him, because Derek's face clearly said that Mark wouldn't like it.

"Are you going to tell me what has gotten you into such a dick mood lately?"

"Dick mood?" Mark drawled, amused at Derek's poorly choice of words.

"Aren´t you getting any, is that it? You do know that pissing off all of the women in the hospital is not the way to change that right?"

"Who has gotten more girls, you or me?" Mark dumbfounded. It was no secret that while they were both very handsome, Mark had more luck with the ladies than Derek. "And that´s not it."

"Then what is?"

" _You"_ Mark thought. _"If you hadn't told me to stay away from Little Grey I wouldn't be sitting here right now. I would be in bed with her and not have a care in the world."_

Everyone has always expected the worst from him. He has never felt good enough when it came to any kind of relationship because no one ever chose him. He chose Addison, but she chose Derek, it had always been Derek to her and Mark had just been a pawn in the scheme. It was a shitty thing of him to do, to sleep with his best friend's wife, but Mark honestly thought that for once someone had put him first. When things later didn't work out with Addison he gave everyone what they expected, because that was all he was good for in their eyes. No one saw what hid behind his mask. Until Lexie Grey. She came after him despite his reputation, not because of it. To her he wasn't the easy way to get a quick and good lay. She actualy wanted to be with him because of him. And that is why it pained him so much to stay away from her. But Derek was right, he would end up hurting her because that is what he did. No one expected any better from him and therefor neither did he.

Like she knew Mark was thinking about her, Lexie walked into the bar. She headed towards some of the other interns who were gathered around the dartboard. She looked tiered, he could see that dark circles around her eyes from across the room.

The new training program Hunt was putting them through was brutal. Mark had more than once fought the urge to yell at the good doctor when he saw how wrecked Lexie was. He knew he shouldn't care and it bothered him that he did, but Lexie Grey was special and nobody could deny that.

Unable to take his eyes off of her, Mark stared at Lexie for a good of five minutes before Derek waved his hand in front of Mark's face. She was beautiful in spite of the circles around her eyes and Mark wasn't the only one who noticed. Some of her fellow mate interns were gathered around her and tried to engage her in conversations. His temper that had calmed down with the first sip of the scotch in his hand was starting to rise up to the surface again. It was one thing to think of the possibility of Lexie being with another man, but it was a whole other thing to actually see it happening.

"Mark?!" Derek snapped and Mark reluctantly dragged his eyes away from the hand Lexie had just shrugged of her arm. "You have that look in your eyes again. Like you want to kill someone. What the hell is going on with you?"

"Leave it alone Derek!"

For the rest of the night he tried to pretend to be interested in the latest event in the Derek and Meredith romance saga, but every few seconds he would look over at Lexie. He noticed everything she did. Every time she laughed or talked, his eyes were in her direction. Lexie slipping off to the restroom was no different. When Mark noticed her walk towards the more secluded section of the bar, he made his excuse to Derek and got up to follow her.

Mark grabbed her arm before she could enter the stall and pushed her up against it. A gasp of surprise escaped Lexie's lips but Mark drowned her protest with a punishing kiss. He wasn't gentle and he pulled out all the tricks he had to show her what she was missing out on, to show her how good he was. If she was going to be with someone else he wanted to be damn sure that she was ruined for whoever it was by him. He wanted her to think of Mark Sloan every time she kissed, every time she let someone touch her body the way he had touched it. Mark Sloan was making sure that Lexie Grey would never forget him for the rest of her life.

When air became necessary they broke apart but Mark didn't stop his assault, he moved down to her neck and smirked when he could hear Lexie's breathy moan. How he had come to love that sound.

"Stop." she whispered. "Mark, you have to stop."

"Why? You really want that boy outside?" Mark growled.

"What? No." Lexie sounded startled. "You said that it was a mistake. No one can know. That still hasn't changed, has it?"

He could hear Lexie struggle to get out the words and he stopped his assault on her neck. She was right. Nothing has changed. Derek was still an issue that Mark didn't want to face just yet. He was jealous and he wanted to be with Lexie, he had known that for a long time, but things were still the same. He was still a bad person who would only end up hurting her.

They were interrupted by the buzzing sound of a pager. Mark looked down but it wasn't his. Lexie sighed and put her pager back on the belt loop of her jeans.

"I have to get back to the hospital." she extracted herself from Mark's arms and he didn't put up much of a fight. He watched her leave before slamming his fist in the bathroom stall.


	4. Chapter 4

Four

Did that just happen or had she imagined the entire thing? For someone who only wanted to be strangers who passed in the night, he sure did not act like it. Lexie was having a really hard time to understand Mark. One second he walked in the opposite direction if he saw her coming down the hall and then the next he was cornering her possessively in the slightly filthy bathroom of their regular bar. How was she ever going to move passed whatever it was that they had shared if he kept reeling her in as soon as she got close?

She left the bathroom in a haze, not even taking notice of her friends that where trying to catch her attention. With her mind still in the bathroom with Mark, she grabbed her coat and walked out.

The night had surely taken an interesting turn what with Mark's sudden change of heart and being called back into work. She was already exhausted from the past couple of days and she was not sure how much more she could take. The physical exhaustion was nothing compared to the emotional exhaustion she felt. Her new assignment did not just come with an insane tempo and crazy hours. It also came with a huge emotional strain from all of the patients that they were unable to save. Add Mark's recent rejection on top of that and she was almost at the edge. There had not been a free moment for her to process any of it and she was afraid that if she were to stop, she would fall apart and have no energy left to pick herself up again.

It had been close just moments ago up against the bathroom stall. The beeping from her pager had been the only thing to pull her back from the ledge. Something about Mark Sloan had her lose all sense. He got under her skin and being that close to him hade her forgetting everything but her own name.

Less than a minute Lexie arrived at the hospital and given the late hour, the lobby was more or less deserted. She quickly changed into the light blue scrubs in the locker room before she ran down to the ER. Putting her hair back up into a ponytail, she took one last deep breath before she pushed open the doors to get back to work. Just a few more hours before she could go home and get some sleep she thought.

The ER was a complete chaos when she arrived. People in white coats and scrubs were pulling beds with people on them into trauma rooms, all the while yelling out orders in different directions. Lexie found Dr Hunt in the middle of it all awaiting the next arrival out by the dock.

"Dr Grey." he greeted when he spotted her coming up next to him. "A car accident. Multiple vehicles. The victims are being transported here. It is not pretty."

Just as Dr Hunt stopped speaking they could hear the sirens of in the distance growing louder. A few seconds later the ambo rolled up in front of them and Lexie immediately went into battle mode, all the tiredness she previously felt disappeared and the adrenaline set in. The paramedics jumped out of the bus with a gurney and started to ramble off the patient's vitals. Dr Hunt gave orders as they went into one of the empty trauma rooms that she was too busy to take in, that it was first when they moved the patient from the gurney to the bed that Lexie could register who their patient really was.

"Dad?" she stuttered.

"What was that, Dr Grey?" boomed Owen Hunt's deep voice through the room.

"It's my dad." everyone in the room stopped what they were doing to all look up at her with big, wide eyes.

"This man? This is your father?"

"This is Thatcher Grey, mine and Meredith's father."

"I'm sorry Grey, but you need to leave. You cannot be in here!"

Lexie hesitated for a moment and looked at the man on the bed before complying with Dr Hunt's order. She stopped just outside the door though and looked on through the window. It was hard to grasp the fact that the man inside that room was her father. That the man that had taught her and her younger sister how to ride a bike and who came to every recital and graduation. It was hard to grasp that he was no longer that man. The person who lay on that bed was a shell of the man Lexie had used to know. He had not been that man since her mother passed away. It was like he had buried that part of himself with his wife that day and since then he could only be found at the bottom of a bottle. Thatcher Grey had begun and ended with Susan Grey. Yet she felt scared for the man's life in there.

A voice in the back of her head told her that she should go call Molly or Meredith, but she could not tear herself away from her position by the window. Eventually though she let her eyes move away from the scene and picked up her phone from her pocket. It wasn't very long conversations. Lexie shortly told them what had happened and what she knew. Her sisters confirmed that they were on their way. Neither of them were a big fan of their father right now either, but they also didn't want for someone to have to deal with this alone.

Five minutes later Hunt came out of the trauma room and Lexie could tell from the serious look on his face that she would not like what he had to say. He did not come baring good news.

"Lexie" he began "Your father is stable for now, but he needs surgery soon if he is going to make it through and recover completely."

"Okay… Why don't you operate now?" at her question he got that look on his face that she had witnessed so many times before.

"His blood-alcohol level is dangerously high and we can't put him under. There is too much of a risk that he won't make it through if we do." Lexie felt how the knot in her stomach grew the size of Texas.

"Excuse me?" came a voice from behind them and both Lexie and Dr Hunt whirled around. A man clad in the standard dark blue police uniform was watching them both with a gravely look on his face. It must come with the uniform thought Lexie. "Is your patient under the influence?"

"Yes." answered Hunt. "Why?"

"According to all the witnesses we have interviewed the driver of a silver Toyota swerved over to the wrong side of the road and slammed into the second vehicle, the third didn't have a chance of stopping in time. There was a bottle of bourbon on the floor on the driver's side. It was almost empty."

Lexie felt how the knot in her stomach only grew and she could feel a build up behind her eyes. The silver Toyota had belonged to her mother and bourbon was her father's preferred poison. It shouldn't come as surprise to her. She knew her father had problems and everyone knew that an alcoholic only got worse with time. But it still felt as if someone had knocked out all her air. She could have stopped it. She should have taken his keys or done something that prevented him from getting in a car.

Her eyes burned. She couldn't stand here any longer and listen to the damage her father had caused. It was the final push towards the edge that made her fall over. With a final glance at her father Lexie turned around and walked away. Dr Hunt's attempts to get her to come back fall on deaf ears, she just kept walking out of the ER, down the corridors and away from all of the noise. She needed to be alone to cry, to scream and to sleep. She didn't want anyone near to be able to find her when she did.

. By some miracle she managed to find an empty on-call room that she could hide in. You weren't supposed to lock the door and if you did, everyone would assume that you were not alone in there. Lexie contemplated locking it but decided against it, she did not need another rumour following her around.

She kicked off her shoes and lay down on one of the beds and let the tears fall. Within minutes the pillow she rested on was drenched in tears. Eventually the exhaustion won out and she succumbed to sleep.


End file.
